Johpa

US ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney's command of the Thai language has received both official recognition and praise.

Not bad considering she spoke no Thai before moving here for her post.

What? Really? She has learned Thai is just 6 months? Has anyone here heard her speak Thai?

This is really an insult to Esther Wakeman who has been here for decades, working charities, involved in education, and who does indeed speak Thai as well as any non-Thai I have known. This is an embarrassing case of some Thais attempting to brown nose their way within diplomatic circles. Achaan Esther is certainly worthy of being honored by the Thai government whereas Ms. Kenney remains a neophyte regarding Thailand, its people, and its culture despite her having made exemplary gains in her Thai language skills over the past few months. Would not we all be so lucky as to have private tutors around all day as I am sure Ms. Kenney did not spend her lesson hours in class over at AUA.

Shows how out of touch the Thai Visa news section regulars are with the opinions of the majority of Thai people IMO.

That was clear years before this election.

Payap is located between the two major roads (Sankampeng/ Doi Saket) so it is not easy to find a songthaew to take you there. And it would be a long, hot uncomfortable ride by songthaew along Charoen Muang RD from Thapae Gate. Better to make an arrangement with a tuk-tuk driver to meet you on a regular basis to take you and pick you up at Payap's back gate, formerly the front gate, just off the superhighway (11). Then you can pick up the internal wiki-wiki bus in front of the Payap bookstore to get you to your building on campus.

It is an unbelievable scam that so many Thai folk seem to be falling for Thaksin's sister being the candidate for the next PM's job. Nowhere in the west would this be allowed to happen, not by laws but not allowed by the people. Putting the sister of a convicted crook and proven robber of the Thai people into the PM's job is ridiculous in the extreme.

And in which manner would that be more ridiculous than previous folks who have been highly placed into the PM and other positions to make it exceptional? We have seen sons of previous corrupt, and convicted, politicians get elected into politics. In the past they had a major heroin king-pin as PM. Currently they have a major brothel owner as a political figure. We have had major players in the deforestation of the land become leading politicians. And the list goes on. I mean just what makes the Thaksin family less palatable than any of the other alternatives? They are all for themselves. They all want just want to eat biggest piece of the pie, as the Thais have long referred to politics as "kin muang". They are all jockeying for position when the inevitable "keun sawaan" event happens in the not-so-distant future and even further exploitation of the country becomes a possible dream. The only real difference is that the Democrats have a bit of an agreement within the old school corrupt families as to how to divide the pie into gentlemanly portions so that most get an acceptable piece whereas Thaksin, a late comer, did not pay his perceived dues after his investment into telecommunications surprised the older families by leap frogging him ahead of them. And since he showed what was perceived to be bad manners he was told to leave the table and not come back.

Erm the Op asked for the "big fish" within TV CM, not the whole of CM or the whole of TV.

And as I tried to explain, the shallowness of this vast pond prevents the growth of big fish.

ThaiVisa may be a very large pond, but it is very shallow and big fish are non-existent. Apart from a few who have a need to promote their business, few true "old hands" post here. And some of the biggest fish in the pond, who have been here the longest and have by far the best contacts within the local society are the old time missionaries who have been around since the 1960s. Too many posters here paint all missionaries with a single brush and lose out on befriending some of the most interesting ex-pats in the region.

To me this case shows how ingrained corruption and dirty deeds are within the Tha police force, the mind boggles just wondering how many other times officers have been involved in similar crimes, most victims wont have any where near the clout of the Saudi government and so consequently nothing happens and cover ups prevail

On the other hand, if the Royal Thai Police were not the largest organized crime syndicate within the Kingdom then just imagine what the level of violence would be and ponder whether the resulting society would have created the ex-pat paradise that many here are now enjoying.

It is a sad thing but................................Thailand cannot handle the burden of the refugees. thats a hard cold fact of life. They should be deported back to point of origin.

I know there will be lots of comments on this but Thailand should take care of Thai's and legal residents.

Thailand spends relatively little on the provision and care of the refugees. On the contrary, Thailand probably profits from the presence of these folks by the amount of money their presence generates by the real providers, the NGOs, foreigners who bring hard currency into the country. The business side of the NGOs is significant in towns such as Mae Sot where there are literally hundreds of both professional social workers and perhaps even more volunteers who spend a lot of money during the course of their often extended stays within Thai borders. Then there are the profits that accumulate from the availability of cheap labor, whether that be in the construction trades, domestic servants, not to mention the profits to the police and politicians from the more illegal trades.

So it is a sad thing indeed, but not for the rather heartless Thai polity that enjoys profiting from the plight of the long suffering Burmese peoples. These calls for expatriation of the refugees back into Burma are only used for domestic political purposes to rally voters around the flag, and usually around a political campaign, much as the jingoistic campaign over Wat Preah Vihear along the Cambodian border. And sometimes rather seubeu ex-pats get caught up in the arguments as well.

It must be pretty darn loud to hear a radio through the trees from 150m away. But if it is such a serious problem then it is not the offending family you purchase the whiskey for but instead you treat your pal the kamnan, and his family, to a nice meal along with the whiskey. And coinciding with that event you make some merit (tam bun) by hosting the local abbot (cao awat) and his monks from the local temple and make a contribution. Then you remark that the noise is intolerable and you would be forced to move to another region if the music did not reach a tolerable level regarding both volume and duration.

The last thing you want is to act directly with the neighbors. That is not the Thai way. You must use the kamnan to act as your phu yai. And if they still have roots in the community, you can also note to the landlord that the current situation is intolerable and might force you to break your lease.

Yes there are wats and self-conscious "cultural attractions". Ooooh, Chiang Mai is just so self-aware about it's "cultural attractions". Folks, "cultural attractions" are what you get in a place that has no authentic culture left. Chiang Mai is such a place.

I tend to agree with this poster, although the OP perhaps never left the hard core tourist ghetto areas of the city. On the rare occasion I go into town to see friends, I see that the city is an empty shell of its former self relative to Lanna culture. Now my kids really enjoy the young club scene at night, but that is just about all the city has to offer apart from an endless variety of eateries catering to the rather bland western palate, all of which are blandly discussed here ad nauseum.

If you do not speak Thai then have someone write down the phonetic transliteration for "fix my tire" in Thai. If you do not read Thai then have someone write down in large block letters in Thai "Tire Repair" as seen on small signs everywhere and try to recognize those signs. There is scarcely a village in Thailand that does not have someone who can fix a flat and in any town you are rarely more than 500 meters away from a repair shop. And if you are in a more remote stretch of highway, just be patient as some local will come by in a pickup truck and take you and your flat ( and the bike) to the nearest repair shop.

It is interesting they claim n this site to teach the ability to do calculations without a calculator.

For some of us older farts, that is indeed how we were taught from a very young age indeed. Is is a shame that the younger twitter brained generation can't do calculations in their heads.

"The campaign platforms of both sides are trying to deal with Thailand's widening wealth gap. The richest 20 percent of Thais earn 55 percent of the country's wealth. That figure is close to Tunisia's, the epicentre of the "Arab spring" uprisings, where the top fifth take in 47 percent of the wealth, according to World Bank statistics."

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/06/07/uk-thailandelection-idUKTRE75614C20110607

To allow a slightly broader perspective, both Thailand and Tunisia score better on the Gini Index, a measure of nation-state income inequality, than does the USA.

I have been here 11 years , and feel that the lady boys in general are a blight upon Thailand.

I have been around off and on now for 30 years. I know one or two lady boys who are good friends and several more who are long time acquaintances, and I have had interactions with countless others and I find them, for the most part, delightful people. But I have never been to Pattaya and I have never been to Patong, so maybe I am just meeting the wrong people and not visiting the right places to become so prejudiced as to cast general aspersions towards this group.

Well from your moniker we at least know who rained on your parade.

I'm being told the house I'm considering is in the hills and only wireless USB Internet is available there. Not sure if that offers 100% reliable Skype connections or not...

If your house is indeed up in the hills (that would probably be tambon Mae Raem) then expect the occasional power outages and cell phone disruptions. If an uninterrupted Internet connection is critical to your business then best to not do business from a home in the hills.

Not deadly, sting is comparable to a bee sting.

Yes, not deadly, but often far more painful than an ordinary bee sting. More on par with a sting from one of the more notorious members of the wasp family found flying around some of the more rural mountainous neighborhoods.

In 2003 the war on drugs and all those killings lead to two things:

1. The street price increased from 50 baht to 500 baht

2. Fat go-go dancers

In the more traditional areas around Chiang Mai such as where I maintain a home, Thaksin's draconian actions did lead to a very substantial decrease in the selling of drugs in the schools which then led to a substantial decrease in local crime including burglary, assaults, and domestic violence. Given the endemic corruption and the substantial influence of the drug cartels and their financial bankers in Bangkok, I doubt any other action would have led to the removal of the drugs from the schools. The number of deaths resulting from not acting, inaction, against the drug trade with such extreme prejudice would have been higher than the numbers killed. I do not condone Thaksin's actions, but my Thai neighbors, after years of pleading with authorities, were ecstatic that someone had finally acted to rid the schools of drugs and make a significant dent into the crime sprees that had been endemic in the rural areas the past several years following the switch of the drug cartels from heroin to meth.

Mitt Romney scares you? How do you feel about not being able to find employment. Obama has zero experience in the private sector, and chooses to surround himself with people, who also have zero experience in the private sector.

This thread needs to be closed as the temptation to respond is just too great and we have digressed quite far from Thai related matters. If this thread is not closed I might be tempted to respond to the ilk of Thighlander and plagiarize from Blinky again and risk getting my wrist slapped or worse.

I do not agree with most of McCain's political opinions (he is a moderate within a right wing extremist political party here in the US),and he is a politician who waffles as they ALL do, but he has been supportive of the campaign for human rights in Burma and has been a long time critic of the ruling military junta in Burma. His visit to the Mae Sot Clinic should be applauded. Always good to see Dr. Cynthia in the news. And good to see that McCain will be visiting Aung San Suu Kyi as well. So a rare tip of my hat to Senator McCain.

A Farang who both operates a bar and associates with the Bandidos MC is not exactly your mainstream Farang bar owner. Now personally I have only had polite public interactions with Bandidos members, but I am not so naive as to think that these folks are angels. My hunch is that this case will become quite complex.

HIV is VERY hard to catch.

You clearly missed life in the surrounding more rural districts around Chiang Mai during the 1990s when most sub-districts (tambons)were experiencing weekly funerals related to AIDS deaths. Given the right circumstances, AIDS is clearly transmitted with great ease, either by sexual encounter or by the sharing of needles. The shift from heroin to meth is probably the largest factor in the drop in AIDS incidences up north with the second factor being the closing of many of the more notorious brothels catering to the local clientele.

Thailand is at a transition point, it has to choose between a modernised, efficient farming sector or an engineering production base.

Oh please, "efficiency" is merely a code word meaning that the system has been maximized to percolate upwards all profits in the system into the hand of the few. But highly "efficient" systems fall apart when the masses can no longer afford the items they are producing. The people then have to scramble and compete to find jobs "servicing" the elite. Of course the neo-sahibs who have relocated to Thailand really enjoy that aspect of life in this Kingdom.

Why, in general, is the lot of Thai farmers so precarious when the prices for most agricultural commodities have been strong for years? Where does all the money go from Thailand massive ag. exports?

Like most commodities in Thailand, the rice industry, especially the export industry, has long been monopolized by a few families who distribute, as is proper in a "democracy", political influence to all parties as the political parties in Thailand are not really based upon politics but upon influence. These families, along with the major bankers, often related by marriage, insure that the profits from the sale of commodities like rice, stay within the banking system and do not trickle downwards into the hands of the farmers.

The mechanization of rice farming benefits the large scale land owners, but is not affordable to the smaller padi owners. I remember driving through Phrae province last November and seeing a large rice field not broken up by shorts mud walls being mechanically harvested and directly across the highway were the more traditional padi lands being manually harvested by communal groups. The long term political goal is to have the local big agra slowly take over ownership of the land. And one only need to read this article or listen to the likes of Sondhi Limtongkul to hear the thinly veiled racism at play against the ethnic Tai farmer by the urban Sino-Thai elite.

I am intrigued to know why do so many people think that an NGO or charity in most cases exists only to do evil and ripoff their fat expense accounts ?

That they are 'in the way' most of the time and should never help, mind their own business and basically bugger off ?

Let me give you my take on NGO's, I can't relate any experience from Thailand,.....

Perhaps some of you need to visit the Mae Sot region where there are countless NGO volunteers working to prevent these kids (and many adults) from having few options other than to migrate into the towns to be exploited as labor of one sort or another. I will not get involved in the debate regarding the morality of having sex with a 14 or 15 year old or the morality of paying for a sexual encounter. But most of these youngsters have few options. They are part of a large and ever growing internally displaced population from eastern Burma. The ruling junta of Myanmar is supported by a range of folks from the PRC rulers in Beijing, bankers in Singapore and Brunei, to the two major operators of the natural gas pipeline Chevron and Total S. A. The Thai government is also an accomplice to the situation in eastern Burma that generates this large population that is easily forced into suffering. There is even a well known poster here that once worked as an advisor to the corrupt military junta in Burma. All these folks should share some guilt in this matter.

For those who want to alleviate this problem then contribute to some of the NGOs (use Google) working at the refugee camps providing education, training, and other support. In your home countries join and contribute to your national "campaign for Burma" backing Aung San Suu Kyi. You are not going to change human nature where nearly all men, and some women, find young teenagers attractive and will pay for the opportunity to play with them if the opportunity arises. But you can help provide options and those options are usually provided by NGO groups staffed by volunteers. But caveat emptor as one does need to do due diligence before donating money to any group.